The Great Granola Crisis Of 2007

Have you ever had a project that you just couldn't seem to see the end of? Not because it was too big, or you were procrastinating, but because bad karma seemed to just attach to it?

One of the stores that we wholesale our granola to called late last week with a special order. Could we get ten pounds to an agreed drop-off point by Tuesday afternoon? Certainly.

I told Alan about it. And then had to remind him. Twice.

I felt really mean about it, too. We were having a very nice, very lazy Monday and he had to head downstairs to make up this small batch of granola. Two small batches, actually. They misunderstood when I said our minimum order was ten pounds. And ordered two different kinds.

We nearly forgot to deliver the silly stuff on Tuesday. There was just something about that batch...

Still. It was dropped off on time and that was that. I thought.

Yesterday, I was in the shop. And having a pretty good day, too. I sold a photo early on and that took the pressure off the day. So I was happily floating through Blogland when the phone rang.

It was the man who had ordered the special batch of granola, to say that the store he was planning to buy it from didn't have it.

So I called the drop-off point. They clearly remembered putting it on the truck. Called the other store. Definitely not there.

It had been lost it transit.

Now, we're not talking about some huge grocery conglomerate here. There are no massive warehouses, transit hubs, or an employee list that runs to several hundred pages. We're talking one truck, one driver. Point A to Point B.

And suddenly I go from my quiet day in a sleepy village to Modern Career Woman, trying to increase my readership on my multiple blogs, trying to sell cookbooks, trying to run a brick and mortar shop and trying to track down The Lost Granola of Doom for Mike, who is leaving town in a couple of days and would really like to be able to take the stuff with him.

A few more phone calls and a lot of head-scratching later and I think we've got Mike some replacement granola, but he'll have to drive into Stratford to get it. The doomed shipment is nowhere to be found. It doesn't help that the driver has gone on holiday. And you just know that, come time to pay for this particular batch, the cheque will get lost in the mail.

I know there are people who work in cubicles the world over who dream of being able to escape that life and strike out on their own, with a little business. Baking, say, or antiques.

I, on the other hand sometimes dream of a job in a cubicle with underlings to pass my problems on to.

But, really? Not that often.